Star Watch (17 page)

Lord Vikor Shakrim placed no further attention on the goings on below. He looked up and found several visible stars, and thought of his Sachem,
Rom Dasticon
, the most powerful force in the universe …
though not this universe
. His eyes roamed across the heavens above, as if he were looking for something specific. Which, abstractly, he was. Somewhere out there was the ship that would bring his Sachem forth—here, into this realm. The ancient writings foretold of this phenomenon; his visions, too, had shown it to be true. The vessel, called the
Minian
, would bring to him the
Rom Dasticon
from the farthest depths of the multiverse.

* * *

Boomer ran barefoot among the broken, eroding ruins within HAB 7. Her lungs burned and the ever-present gritty wind caused her eyes to sting and water. Gone was her spacer’s jumpsuit—gone was the set of small throwing knives she typically kept hidden. Today she wore the lightweight garments of the desert nomad. And today, she carried the weapon of the Tahli warrior: a smaller-sized enhancement shield, worn snugly on her left forearm.

Briar Mansfield was running next to her and Boomer was mustering everything she could to keep pace with this Kahill Callan master’s long fluid stride. “Use the shield to propel you; direct its energy down and backward, like this.” Briar’s own shield, which she’d reversed on her arm to face downward, moved back and forth, corresponding in cadence to her running stride. Boomer watched as Briar pulled far ahead, her strides easily twenty to thirty feet long. She soon circled around, running back to Boomer’s side.

“The shield uses, enhances, your own highly-focused thoughts,” Briar told her. “Thoughts have a vibration rate. You must talk to the shield … communicate with it … feel the vibrations moving back and forth between you and the shield. Remember, your shield is a part of you … not a separate thing.”

“Well, it’s not doing any of that crap for me. I think my shield is broken. I think you gave me a broken shield … that, or maybe this one’s just a stupid toy,” Boomer said, irritated.

The two slowed and came to a stop at what looked, to Boomer, like remains of a stone bridge, which abruptly ended over their heads, twenty feet up.

“What is this place?” Boomer asked, trying to catch her breath.

“It’s just an old aquifer. It once used to flow water to other parts of the city.”

“What happened to the city?”

“Thousands of years ago it was a beautiful place … a Shangri-La. It was destroyed during the third rising.”

“Third rising?”

“The Sahhrain’s third rising.”

“How many risings have they had?” Boomer asked.

“They are on their fifth … some fear that they won’t be defeated this time—that they’ve finally come into their own time.”

Boomer wasn’t sure she understood all Briar said, but nodded her head just the same.

“Here, give me your shield, Boomer … let me take a look at it.”

Boomer slid it off her arm, handing it over to Briar.

“You haven’t graced it yet.”

“What do you mean? Graced it?”

“When you put it on, or take it off … you thank it for its gifts … for the gifts it bestows on you.” Briar took the small shield and placed her own palm on its outer surface. “Shalla ka la rohlm.”

Boomer repeated Briar’s words, “Shalla ka la … rohlm?”

“That’s right. It means
gratitude into the light
.”

“You try it.” Briar handed it back.

Boomer smiled, placed her palm upon its surface, and feeling somewhat silly, said, “Shalla ka la rohlm.”

Had she just felt something? A tingle … an almost imperceptible electrical charge?

“You ready to go again?” Briar asked.

“I’m ready,” Boomer said, slipping the shield over her hand and onto her forearm. For sure, this time she did feel
something
. Boomer didn’t wait for Briar; she sprinted forward, along the worn path, trying to get at least some kind of head start. She positioned the shield face down and let it move back and forth, the way Briar had done. She reflected on her thoughts, being vibrations, and tried communicating, actually talking, to the shield. Her next stride took her completely by surprise: She’d leapt a twenty-foot distance in the blink of an eye.

Chapter 24

Alchieves System

SkyTrans Transport Vessel E911v, Planet Trom, Cloud-Port E5926

_________________

The cloud-port fell several more feet before jolting to a stop. Both Ricket and Jason were thrown to the deck.

“Would that work … using the
Minian
to recharge the batteries?” Jason asked.

“No, Captain … but that did give me another idea that has promise.”

Jason got to his feet and waited for Ricket to continue.

“The energy storage device this engine uses is dated technology … quite inefficient, really. The SkyTrans propulsion system utilizes one large ion drive. Hmm, I’ll need to manufacture a flash power source, in the
Minian
’s phase synthesizer … something that won’t take long to make.”

“Ricket, this cloud-port is about to fall. We have only minutes—”

“Yes, Captain. Please meet me in the engineering section of this vehicle … I will be there within seven minutes.” With that, Ricket closed his helmet’s visor and flashed away. Jason went to the port observation window and looked down at the concourse below. Large groups of people were moving into designated areas in front of the various SkyTrans loading ramps. He heard the voice of Security Commander Larkbadder broadcasting directives from the PA system. Jason looked directly across to the tall control tower, on the other side of the concourse, where he figured both Larkbadder and Leon Pike were probably standing at this moment. His thoughts went from Larkbadder to Leon, who seemed like a strange man. Not entirely unlikable and, if he was entirely honest with himself, he wasn’t so sure he’d have reacted any differently after being marooned on an alien planet for a year.
So what to do with him?
He had qualities that could be useful. And he knew this sector of space better than any of them.

Jason heard Larkbadder’s voice again and realized hordes of people were moving—rushing forward, toward the ramps.
Crap!
He’d let the time run away! He brought up the SkyTrans schematic overlay and pinpointed engineering’s location. It would be a tight squeeze, but he found a location suitable to phase-shift into. About to phase-shift away, Jason was hailed.

“Go for Captain.”

“Captain … I’m reading highly-elevated heat signatures from four other anti-gravity generators. They’re red-lining, Cap!”

“We’re working on it, Gunny,” Jason said, looking back out the window. At first he didn’t see any sign of the
Minian
, but he then spotted her about one thousand feet above. “I’m hoping it won’t come to this, but be prepared to phase-shift anyone wearing a battle suit back onto the
Minian
—save as many as possible, if this rock falls.”

“I think most would phase-shift off themselves, Cap … but, yes, we’ll ensure our people get off the cloud-port.”

Jason cut the connection and phase-shifted to the SkyTrans’s opposite end. As dingy and grimy as the passenger and bridge sections of the SkyTrans engine were, he found engineering far worse for wear and neglect. Steam hissed and sprayed from too many broken, or cracked, pipe openings to count, and the air was thick with humidity. Pipes of every size surrounded him. Large boiler-type containers took up nearly the entire compartment space. Corrosion and sediment gave everything an archaic, on the verge of crumbling apart, feeling
. How old is this thing?

Jason, again using the schematic overlay to locate where the ship’s actual drive mechanism was located, found it was farther back, more toward the stern. Heading twenty steps down a narrow passage, amid a jungle of more pipes, he found it. The massive drive system took up most of the stern section of the vessel—surprisingly, it looked to be partially mechanical-looking, strange for it being an ion drive. Here too, everything was all dripping with condensation; it sat idle. Jason thought it would be a miracle if the thing even turned over.

The SkyTrans began to rock back and forth. Jason had the same sinking feeling in his gut and waited for the cloud-port to stop falling. Eventually, it did … but the rocking motion continued. They were running out of time.
Where the hell’s Ricket?

Jason saw the flash of something and Ricket’s life-icon appeared on his HUD, along with Bristol’s. Jason walked forward and came to a set of steps leading up to a metal catwalk.

“Here, Captain.”

Jason found Ricket, kneeling down by a black, nondescript enclosure the size of a typical Navy-issue footlocker. He seemed to be trying to figure out how to open it. Bristol was holding an advanced-looking, toaster-sized piece of equipment that looked completely out of place in these surroundings.

Bristol, seeing Jason approach, handed him the device. “Hold this.”

Bristol’s disregard of respecting military protocol came as no surprise to Jason. The truth was, Bristol didn’t actually hold a military post on the
Minian.
He was more of a consultant than anything else. Brilliant as he was, Jason found even a little bit of the guy went a long way.

“Just get out of the way and let me do it,” Bristol said to Ricket. “I don’t see how you can do anything with those little Craing fingers of yours … Move!”

Ricket backed away, giving him space at the enclosure. Bristol moved his hands around a flange, one hand going left, the other going right, his fingertips probing its underneath side. His left hand abruptly stopped. He moved his right hand to the same corresponding position on the other side of the enclosure. He gripped his fingers and there came an audible unlatching sound. Bristol pulled up on the enclosure, and its upper half came away in his hands. “Out of the way … I’m putting this down right where you’re standing.”

Jason stepped back as the top half of the enclosure slammed down onto the catwalk.

Ricket moved quickly, taking the toaster-sized device away from Jason, and kneeled at the open enclosure. Bristol pulled a satchel around to his front that he wore over one shoulder. Inside it were a myriad of wires and cables and other small devices that Jason was clueless about.

“Use the ano-adapter to splice—”

“I already know that, Ricket. Why don’t you just let me do it?” Bristol barked, nudging Ricket to the side with his scrawny shoulder.

Jason lost his balance as the SkyTrans began rocking violently. He found a horizontally running pipe, at head level, to grab on to. And then the shuddering started. Like little micro-falls. Ricket and Bristol looked up and around.

“Don’t stop!” Jason commanded.

That earned Jason a backward glance from Bristol as he and Ricket quickly returned to whatever it was they were doing inside the enclosure.

Jason answered an incoming hail, “Go for Captain.”

“We need to get you three out of there, Cap!” Orion yelled into his NanoCom.

“And leave thousands of Tromians to fall to their deaths? I think we’ve almost got it. Ricket and—”

“Then you don’t know … the cloud-port … Captain, it’s free falling!”

“What?”

“Free falling!”

“Okay … read off the altitude as we fall. We’ll phase-shift out if we have to.”

“You’re at twenty-five thousand feet, and falling … twenty-four …”

Jason saw Ricket and Bristol were done—Bristol reaching for the top of the enclosure.

“Leave the fucking thing … we’re free falling. Ricket, get this thing kicked over!”

Ricket looked up at Jason, his eyes wide behind his visor. “We can’t do that from here. We need to get back to the bridge.”

“Twenty-two thousand … Twenty-one thousand …”

“Then get us there!” Jason spat out.

Ricket continued to stare up at him. “The overlay schematic … Captain, there are … people crowded into the bridge.”

“Eighteen thousand … seventeen thousand …”

Jason didn’t hesitate and phase-shifted the three of them into the bridge compartment. Typically, Jason found that a phase-shift into solid mass would always displace the mass—the phase-shifter taking precedence over what was there. In the case of a phase-shift onto organic material, as would be the case here, the phase-shift process could be catastrophic to the recipient. Like a sudden impact akin to being hit by a car—organic material, such as a person, rarely walked away from it.

The flash occurred and bodies flew everywhere—screams filling the air.

“Fifteen thousand … fourteen thousand …”

“Everyone out of here! Now!” Jason yelled. Several Tromians, lying immobile on the deck, were either dead or unconscious. Scared, and moving way too slowly, the crowd began to clear out of the confined space.

“Thirteen thousand … twelve thousand …”

Jason pushed a man out of the way and looked for Ricket, but found Bristol instead. He was crouched down at the center console; Ricket’s legs protruded from beneath it. He heard Ricket on the open channel: “Try it now!”

“Ten thousand … nine thousand …”

Bristol threw a large lever forward, and the SkyTrans began to vibrate … but now it was a constant, rhythmic, vibration … the drive had come alive!

“Seven thousand …”

“We’re still falling!” Jason yelled.

Ricket joined Bristol and both were busy at the controls. Jason wondered if it was time … time to abandon and move his people from the SkyTrans and off the cloud-port. He wondered if he could really abandon the tens of thousands of Tromians on the cloud-port to meet their dire fate on the rapidly-approaching surface below.

“Five thousand …”

Outside the forward observation window he saw the cloud-port falling away from their SkyTrans—plummeting faster toward the surface of Trom.

“I’m getting us out of here!” Jason yelled.

“Five thousand and sixty … Five thousand and fifty … Five thousand and forty … Hey, Cap,” Orion said, relief in her voice, “at your current rate of descent, you’ll be able to land that thing and survive.”

Ricket and Bristol glanced over to Jason … both smiling.